Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/BRAZIL: After declaring a medical emergency, Brazil has airlifted 16 starving Yanomami tribal people to receive urgent treatment.
The indigenous people live in the northern reserve state of Roraima in Brazil. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the President, has accused far-right Jair Bolsonaro, his predecessor, of committing genocide against the rainforest tribe.
After hundreds of children in Yanomam died from malnutrition, the government declared a medical emergency. The deaths are associated with water pollution caused by logging in densely forested areas, mining, and where food insecurity is rife.
Following allegations of chronic starvation among Yanomami children, President Lula traveled to Roraima, which borders Venezuela and Guyana, on Saturday. He claimed to be “shocked” by what he discovered. What he observed in Roraima, he subsequently stated, “was not just a humanitarian disaster; it was genocide: a deliberate crime against the Yanomami, committed by a government unsympathetic to pain. I came here to declare that we will treat our native population humanely.”
28, 000 Yanomami Tribal People live in Jungles
In the Yanomami reserve, there are believed to be 28,000 indigenous people. They live in tiny, dispersed, semi-permanent settlements and engage in hunting and small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture. Throughout his four years in office, Bolsonaro frequently questioned the size of the native reserves and made promises to open up some of them to mining and agriculture.
Critics said that his comments encouraged criminal activity in the area and that his government undermined environmental laws. The Yanomami reserve, which is rich in diamonds, minerals, and gold, is thought to be home to over 20,000 illegal miners at the moment. In 2021, local miners used automatic guns to start shooting at the Yanomami.
According to the new Lula government, illegal gold mining is clearly connected to the deaths of more than 500 indigenous children who drank mercury-tainted water in recent years. Brazilian society is deeply political, and Lula was elected president on January 1 after narrowly defeating Jair Bolsonaro.
Sonia Guajajara, the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, said: “The previous government must be held accountable for allowing this situation to get worse to the point where we find adults looking like children and children reduced to bones and skin.”
The Interior Minister, Flavio Dino, blamed the former government for this credulity and promised to investigate this matter.
In addition to airlifting members, field hospital would also be established
In addition to airlifting some of the tribe’s most dangerously ill members, Brazilian authorities declared that the health ministry would establish a field hospital, send supplies, and send medical personnel to the region.
The situation is “catastrophic” and “disastrous,” according to Dr. Andre Siqueira, a tropical medicine expert now working in the Roraima region. He told the BBC that he had seen cases of severe malnutrition in entire indigenous families.
He said the Yanomami were not the only tribes facing severe threats to their existence. He had witnessed “similar situations of lack of assistance and care” in other indigenous territories. “This urgently needs to be addressed because our humanity depends on it,” Dr. Siqueira said.
